Aylsham Christian's 500 mile walk for peace in Yemen

Fiona Tibbett of Aylsham Parish Church has started a year-long challenge to walk 500 miles to raise awareness, prayer support and £1,000 for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Yemen Crisis Appeal, and she invites you to join her.

On May 14 Fiona Tibbett, an Office Manager at St Michael's C of E VA Nursery and Infant School in Aylsham began a 12 month challenge to walk 500 miles in aid of the Disasters Emergency Committee’s (DEC) Yemen Crisis Appeal.

Fiona, a mum of two, who will begin training in August to become a Reader with Aylsham Parish Church explained how she came up with her ‘Walk for Peace’ challenge. She said: “I spend a lot of time praying and felt, very strongly, that God was calling me to do this. I followed the 40 Acts of Generosity and it was reasonably easy to think of things I was doing on a small scale but felt the need to do more. So I prayed and kept coming back to Yemen.

“I read up more on the humanitarian crisis there and Britain's involvement in selling arms to the Arab states which are then used in the civil war. To think that only two or three years ago Yemen's economy was on the up and now it's infrastructure is in ruins. That is heart breaking enough on its own but to then take into account that our country may well have added to the crisis by selling weapons makes it more shameful.”

Fiona continued: “My Walk for Peace aims to help those in Yemen in three ways. Firstly to raise awareness of the situation, secondly to raise funds for the DEC Yemen Crisis Appeal to bring food and medicine to those who desperately need it and thirdly to encourage people to pray for those living through war and for peace.

“I chose to do the 500 mile walk over a year so that I can keep the situation in Yemen in people's minds for a longer period of time and continue praying over that time. I find walking a good time to pray, at one with God's beautiful creation. I appeal to others to walk and pray too.”

So far Fiona has walked 40 miles in the first three weeks and raised over £100. She would love others to walk with her or do their own sponsored walk for the cause. She said: “I pray that my Walk for Peace encourages others to help, so more can be raised to help the crisis in Yemen and God will hear our many prayers for peace and wisdom to those in authority.”

She said: “Let’s make it a 1,000 mile walk in total!”

To sponsor Fiona online click here or email Fiona at ftibbitt.ft@gmail.com if you would like to join for part of the sponsored walk. You can also text 70070 with the code WFPY50 £5